Our 3 year old daughter has terrible eczema all over her body. We saw an allergist today and had testing done. Because of her age, we are doing food/weather/location logs for the next 4 weeks to try to find out if there are certain triggers to her eczema before we decide whether or not to do allergy shots. Just to clarify, the testing they do on a small child is much more limited, because of the age of the child. We know from her tests today that she is majorly allergic to mold, dust, dust mites, and is already showing mild allergies to various weeds/grasses. They did NOT test her for any food allergies.
On to the real question...
Our doctor gave us some samples of some free and clear soaps/shampoos/sunblocks, which will be great to use in the mean time, but we live in a smaller community (within driving distance of some larger cities). We order a lot of things from Amazon, or we are pretty much limited to the Wal-Mart in a nearby city. I would like some ideas of BRANDS of free and clear soaps, shampoos, etc. that people with eczema have had success with using. Our daughter's allergy doc talked about being cautious about using just any ole scent free lotions, because often times there is a chemical that counteracts the natural scent of the lotion to make it 'scent free.' That chemical can be an irritant (and might I say that, WOW, I didn't realize how many thing that we think are free and clear are not actually!).
Anyhow, I can try to order or find these exact brands of these samples, or I can get others (and that is okay with the doc), but I am not at all sure of which other brands to even consider. Please let me know if you have things that have worked well for you/your child. Also, if you have any helpful tips on things we should be doing around the home to help our daughter, then I appreciate those tips, as well! Thanks for your suggestions!
Added: My daughter LOVES to wash her hands (not unreasonably so, but after meals, after coming inside from playing, etc.). Any ideas on a Hand Soap?
Thanks for all of the suggestions. This definitely helps!
All Free and Clear detergent.
Don't use any fabric softener
Cetaphil soap (bar for the bath, pump for hand soap)
Cervae hand cream and hand lotion (pediatric dermatologist recommended this one, and it's really good)
I have very sensitive skin and my son has excema, and these work for us.
I can get all these at Target or Rite Aid here, so I think they should be easy to find.
http://www.nationaleczema.org/
This is the website for the National Eczema Association.
Go to the "Seal of Acceptance" tab on the website, click it, and there will be a menu saying "Product Directory."
Click on this.
It will give you much info.
Also, per products for combating dust mites/dust/etc., this is the place my friend's Doctor, recommended:
http://www.natlallergy.com/?eid=GOOGLE&tid=g_allergy_...
I would also HIGHLY recommend that you get an air filter for your home or at least for her room. Being she is allergic to environmental dust/pollen/weeds/grasses, etc.
And, whenever she comes back into the house from being outside, have her change her clothes. Because, tiny pollen particles, which we cannot even see with our naked eyes, can and do adhere to clothing. And this can make an allergic person, react. Still.
My kids have eczema.
For shampoo, they did well with Sauve Free and Clear Shampoo + Conditioner
http://www.amazon.com/Suave-Gentle-Shampoo-Conditioner-Ou...
For body wash, there were two that worked for us
Suave Kids Free & Clear Body Wash
http://www.amazon.com/Suave-Kids-Body-Wash-Gentle/dp/B002...
Avon Sensitive Skin Bubble Bath
http://shop.avon.com/product.aspx?pf_id=45730
For sunscreen, we used Aveeno Baby
http://www.amazon.com/Aveeno-Natural-Protection-Lotion-3-...
The Suave items are available at Target and Walmart also.
Another thing that help was getting a full house water softener.
I order lavender castile soap for my 2yo from Puritan's Pride (http://www.puritan.com/). It works really well.
We dilute with water his insect repellant and spray it on with a bottle that "mists". It's from Burt's Bees.
I know you didn't ask this but, my daughter's eczema is almost gone when we eliminated milk.
She tested negative for the allergy (she has a tree nut allergy so we tested both blood and prick for a lot of things). Just because you are not allergic, doesn't mean you are not sensative.
My point is...keep trying typical trigger foods (lists are available on line) even if you find out that she is not allergic.
The only hand soap we can use is dr bronners baby Castile soap. For bath we use California baby. For laundry no softener and I've had no problem with Dreft and Dropps baby. We use natural hand spray when in restrooms. Clean well has worked best as it is alcohol free. I have had success using Aveeno bath colloidal and Aveeno eczema cream. I wish you many blessings for healing as this is a daily struggle. Are you giving omega supplements? They help me a great deal.
I use All Free and Clear laundry soap. Absolutely no dryer sheets or fabric softener, those are the worst for eczema.
Plain bar soaps have fewer chemicals than the liquid hand soaps. There are even shampoo bars but I found they were hard to use on longer hair.
Walmart carries 7th Generation products and I like their unscented dishwasher and dish soap.
For lotions and bath soap, I've had the best luck with Aveeno products.
I have delt much with eczema with my son. If you look at my page, the question posted entitle "My sons Principal", you sound like you are dealing with the same sevarity that we delt with.
Off the top of my head, as I am not at home to check furthur.
My son, 11 years old,
- takes a perscription pill daily, "Singular".
- uses Johnson&Johnson head to toe baby wash (yellow bottle) everyother day when showering.
- Aveeno baby moisturizer in the morning when getting dressed and before bed, aswell as anytime he has an itch and after every shower.
However when it was REALLY bad the doctor perscribed a "cortizone-H" cream with a steroid content. It was amazing and with these few things his skin has been completley clear for several years now, and without scaring from him scratching. We would apply the cream to the very bad sections and then bandage to ensure it was absorbed. On the rest of his skin we applied and aloe vera gel moisturizer.
Hope this helps, good luck.
My friend swears by California Baby products for her daughter's eczema. I'm going tonight to get it for my son. I do find Exederm helps with my son's eczema, but my friend said the California Baby keeps her daughter's eczema from returning.
This may sound silly, but when my son was younger and had a bit of eczema, we used Ivory bar soap for bathing. It is exactly free of all things, but it worked well for us. Plus, it is very cheap and you can get a three bars for $1 at your local big box store to give it a try. Another idea might be be to look at organic or natural baby washes and hand soaps like "Kiss my face" or "Eco Me". The often have scents, but are from natural things like oranges. I've not used them, though.
My son also had horrible excema, but just on the palm of his left hand. For YEARS, I bought every single over the counter "eczema" lotion that ever existed. I took him to the dermatologist, and all they ever did was prescribe a steroid cream (which is not good to use frequently). I started him on a GF diet, and that helped. Then I put him on a dairy free diet as well, which helped his eczema even more - however, he said being dairy free was too hard, so I let it go, but he still eats GF (which I highly recommend for your daughter).
Recently, I took my son to an herbalist/Chinese medicine doctor, and she gave me herbal pills to give him for 2 weeks. The 2 weeks is almost up, and his eczema is almost all cleared up! These herbal pills are amazing!! They are tiny and round, and he has to take 20 a day - 10 in the morning and 10 at night. Since your daughter is 3 and can't swallow pills (I'm assuming), I'm sure it would be fine to crush them up in a pill crusher and put it in juice (but ask the herbalist, of course)! I can't say enough great things about Chinese medicine/herbs. It has helped the most!
I know you said you live in a small town, but even if you would have an hour drive (or more) to an herbalist, it will be worth it - I promise! Good luck.
I also use All Free and Clear. Dreft is good on the skin factor, but I think All cleans better. And as others said, no dryer sheets!
For bath time we did use Suave Free and Clear kids stuff and had success with that, but I've now moved on to Dove and it seems to be fine. My FIL has pretty bad eczema and he uses Dove and is the one that got us onto it. Plus, I find it just easier to have the kids use the adult stuff so everyone can use it, it comes in a bigger bottle, etc.
For hand soap have you tried Method? Target sells a lot of their stuff but I'm not sure if you have one of those...Amazon probably does though, I would think.
Thankfully my son's eczema isn't horrible. It was much, much worse when he was a baby and isn't terrible any more, but it goes through flare ups certainly. Good luck!
